Ex-C.I.A. Chief Stirs War Debate in Australia. Also: How Much Is the Great Barrier Reef Worth?

David H. Petraeus, pictured here in 2015, said this week that Australia can expect to play a larger role fighting the Islamic State in Asia.Credit
Mark Wilson/Getty Images

The Breakdown aims to put a selection of Australia’s daily news into context. Today’s picks:

• Experts are debating David H. Petraeus’s warning that Australia will be dealing militarily with the Islamic State in Southeast Asia for decades.

• The Great Barrier Reef is worth tens of billions of dollars, but will attaching a big number help save it?

• Russell Crowe continues his war on weekly magazines.

Australia vs. Petraeus

David Petraeus, the retired American general who came to prominence running counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and later served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, began an Australian debate on military intervention when he spoke at a Liberal Party gala in Sydney on Friday.

Australian air power was deployed last week in the Philippine city of Marawi, where the government is fighting to regain control from militants loyal to the Islamic State. Mr. Petraeus argued for Australia launching more decisive military action to contain the threat.

An Isolationist’s nightmare? Mr. Petraeus generally enjoys doting support from the conservative circles around Australia’s Liberal government. And he was made an honorary officer of the Order of Australia — one of the country’s highest honors — in 2009, under a previous Labor administration. But as populist politicians have risen and become more alarmist about Islam, so too has he become more vocal about what he has described as “generational struggle” in the region.

Many of his recent public statements — including appearances on PBS and in The Wall Street Journal — have advocated for hawkishness in response to the threat of Islamist extremism.

The regional scholars we talked to Monday were divided on the approach he’s laying out.

Alan Dupont, a nonresident fellow at the Lowy Institute, agreed with Mr. Petraeus’s threat assessment. “We’ve been caught napping,” he said. “He’s absolutely right to awaken the Australian public consciousness about the seriousness of this. We’ve got to nip this in the bud quickly, otherwise Petraeus will be right in his predictions of a generational struggle in our own region.”

On Friday night, Mr. Petraeus also suggested that Australia is “not going to drone strike or Delta Force your way out of this problem. You’re going to have to have forces on the ground.”

That possibility drew scorn from some Australians, who according to recent polls, mostly support interventions against the Islamic State in the Middle East but are more reluctant to become involved in a significant conflict in Asia.

Some geopolitical experts in the region also expressed deep skepticism.

“I don’t think it’s Australia’s problem to solve,” said Sidney Jones, the director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict in Jakarta. “I think it’s the Philippines’ problem to solve. He was also harping on combat as a solution, and that’s absolutely wrong. Australia should not take that advice.”

Ms. Jones suggested that Australia use other measures to stabilize the region. “Think about what needs to be done to remove the ungovernability in certain parts of the Philippines,” she said.

“David Petraeus is a very political animal,” Ms. Jones said, hinting that he might be looking for a job in the Trump administration. “I would take everything he said on his trip to Australia with a large grain of salt.”

Valuing the Great Barrier Reef

Video

Valuing the Great Barrier Reef

A new report has calculated that the Great Barrier Reef is worth $56 billion.

By GREAT BARRIER REEF FOUNDATION on Publish Date June 26, 2017.
Photo by Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

Take a look at the video above and guess: How much is all that beauty worth?

A report provided an answer on Monday, declaring that the Great Barrier Reef was worth 56 billion Australian dollars, or about $42 billion. Deloitte Access Economics, with support from the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, calculated that the reef contributed 6.4 billion dollars to the Australian economy in 2015-16 alone and supported 64,000 full-time jobs.

In a reference that juxtaposed the global response to bank collapses with the response to the dying natural wonder, the report also stated that the reef was “too big to fail.”

Does a dollar value matter? Attempts to assess the value of nature stretch back at least 20 years. In 1997, 13 ecologists, economists and geographers estimated the global value of 17 ecosystem services at $16 trillion to $54 trillion a year, with a likely figure of at least $33 trillion.

The idea of “natural capitalism” has since taken off, with conferences, academic papers and financing from large corporations like Dow. But even as some advocates welcome dollar figures that put resources on par with major companies (Nintendo’s value reached $42 billion after Pokémon Go), a backlash has been brewing.

Critics worry that emphasizing the economic value of nature might make it easier for nature to be exploited, reducing it to simply another good or service.

“When you look at the natural value of the reef and of wetlands, the economic and social value is virtually infinite,” said Rich Gilmore, director of the Australia office of the Nature Conservancy. “Without the clean air and healthy resources that nature provides, there is no society or economy.”

“It’s unfortunate that we have to reduce things to economic values to make the case for them to be conserved,” he added.

Still, he said, if those who do not naturally value the environment highly enough need a little help to see the wealth before their very eyes, perhaps it is worth it.

“These types of things add to the case for the conservation,” he said. “Anything that highlights the value of the reef across society — and raises awareness of conserving natural assets like the reef — is a good thing.”

Russell Crowe Returns

A light, brief and final item for the day: The noted gossip media antagonist (and Oscar-winner) Russell Crowe gave the weekly magazine Woman’s Day a pretty solid whack on Twitter on Monday, calling on the publication to stop making up relationships he’s never been in.

He seems to be swinging hard after his friend Rebel Wilson won a defamation case this month against the magazine’s owner, Bauer Media Group. For a taste of his bilious response, visit his Twitter feed.

Adam Baidawi has never been invited to a Liberal Party gala; Damien Cave has covered David Petraeus in Iraq and coral reefs in Florida.